THE LEXICAL APPROACH

Presented by

Hicham FERTAT
Brahim AIT YAHIA
Khalid Touile
 THE CONTENT

 Background
 The principles of the lexical approach
 The types of the lexical chunks
 Syllabus
 Teacher’s role
 Student’s role
 Implementing the theory into practice:
sample activities for the classroom practices
 The limitations of the approach
 BACKGROUND
-Decades ago, Linguists considered vocabulary to
be subservient to grammar. They preferred to lay
emphasis on the structures of language rather
the words.
-First discussed by Dave Willis in 1990, the Lexical
approach was introduced by Michael Lewis (1993-
1997), as a reaction against traditional grammar
based instruction.
 BACKGROUND

-The approach focuses on developing learners’

proficiency with lexis, or words and word
combination.
-He advocated that lexical phrases in any
language offer more communicative and
expressive power than grammatical structures.
 Principles of the lexical approach

1- Language consists of grammaticalised lexis,

not lexicalised grammar.
« Words in combination not grammar
pattern »
-The grammar vocabulary dichotomy is
invalid; much language consists of multi
words ‘’chunks’’
Eg: Chunks vs. rough word substitution
 Lexical environment
Principles of the lexical approach
2- A central element of language teaching is
raising students’ awareness of ,and
developing their ability to chunk language
successfully
 FLUENCY
3- Subconscious acquisition rather than
conscious learning:
« Vocabulary is acquired, not TAUGHT » Lewis.
Natural, native-like…
Principles of the lexical approach
4- Lexis plays the central role in language
teaching

5- Grammatical error is recognized as

intrinsic to the language discovery
process
Principles of the lexical approach

6 - Receptive skills, particularly listening

are given enhanced status

7- OHE paradigm not PPP paradigm.

Exploration
Principles of the lexical approach
8- Recycling and reviewing the language
taught
Frequency and activation
 Lexis
 The entire store of lexical items in a language is called its lexis.
(Wikipedia)
 Lexis refers to strings of words which go together. (Lewis
1997:213)
 Lexis is a more general word than common vocabulary.
Vocabulary is often used to talk of the individual words of
language; lexis covers single words and multi-word objects
which have the same status in the language as simple words,
the items we store in our mental lexicons ready for use.
(Lewis1997:217)
 Lexis includes not only the single words but also the word
combinations that people store in their mental lexicons. (Olga
2001:1)
 Types of the lexis
1 “Lexical chunk” are groups of words that can be found
together in language
Example: "in my opinion," "to make a long story short,” “by
the way,” “at the end of the day,” “Do you mind if I…”
“That will never happen to me”

Lewis (1997:8) identifies multi-word items as falling into four

types:
1) a) Words
b) Polywords
2) Collocations
3) Fixed Expressions
4) Semi-Fixed Expressions
 Words and polywords
According to Lewis words refer to the individual
vocabulary and polywords “are nearly always very
short 2- or 3- word phrases which are obvious units.
They are often, but by no means exclusively, adverbial
phrases of different kinds”. Lewis
Here are some examples:
Sentence adverbs: on the other hand, in some ways
Expressions of time: the day after tomorrow, every
now and then
Prepositions of place: on either side of, upside down
Collocations
The second major category of lexical items is
collocations. These are chunks of lexical items that
naturally co-occur by mutual expectancy.
 Fixed Expressions

The third division of items is Fixed Expressions which is

also known as Institutionalized Expressions. Lewis states:
these are comparatively rare and short. These are chunks a
speaker stores as units and uses in speech. (1997:9)
e.g Good morning/ I’m fine/ Can you tell me the way to…

Semi- Fixed Expressions

The last category is Semi-fixed Expressions. This category

according to Lewis is an important one ‘that contains a
spectrum’. These expressions range ‘from very long and
from almost fixed to very free’. He also states: these are
often verbless expressions in the spoken language for
managing everyday situations’ (Lewis,1997:11) e.g that was
my fault / could you pass…..
 The teacher’s roles
Teacher’s talk is the major source of learner’s input
Organizing the technological system, providing
scaffolding to help learners

The learner’s roles

Replace the idea: the teacher is “ the knower” , the
learner is “the discoverer”
Data analyst
 Procedures:
Hill (2000) suggested classroom procedures
which involve:
a) teaching individual collocations
b) making Ss aware of collocations
c) extending the already-known of
Ss by adding collocation restrictions to known
vocabulary
d) storing collocations through
encouraging Ss to keep a lexical notebook.
 Sample activities for the classroom practice
 1-Find someone who…
This activity is adapted to focus on different
lexical structures and the teacher should plant lexical
chunks in it.
2-Songs
Songs are full of lexical chunks especially semi-
fixed expressions. Teacher can use gapping lyrics to
focus on useful lexical chunks rather than individual
words.
3-Lexical chunk dictation
4-Lexical chunk hot seat
5-Slot-fillers
 Limitations

-In 1998, Thornbury denied defying the lexical approach as an

approach by saying: ‘’All chunks but no pineapple’’.

-Students end up learning language chunks but not a whole

language system.

-Learning Lexis is not an easy task.

 Limitations

-The approach makes no suggestions as to how

its principles can be translated into a syllabus.

-Lewis assumes that it is the exposure to

language and not formal teaching that can
increase the learner’s lexicon.
 References:

1. Lexical approach activities ;Ken Lackman

2. Pedagogical implications of the lexical approach by
Michael lewis
3. Second language vocabulary acquisition( 1997).
edited by James Coady; Combridge university press
4. Jeremy Harmer, “The Practice of English Lnguage”.
5. Wikipedia.org
Thank You for Your Attention